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Wisconsin & Southern Railroad Achieves 1 Million Man-Hours Injury-Free Watco’s Wisconsin & Southern Railroad (WSOR) has accomplished a feat very few other short lines can claim to have done: They celebrated the tremendous milestone of achieving more than 1 million man-hours injury free. “For a regional railroad to go over three years without a recordable injury is extremely impressive. It’s even more so when you consider the number of WSOR team members, who work in the challenging, complex work environment a railroad of that size deals with each and every day,” said Travis Herod, Senior Vice President of Environmental, Health and Safety. When talking with team members, several of them credit the training they receive currently for the improvement in their safety record. WSOR Roadmaster Chris Jacobson was with the WSOR before Watco purchased the line in 2012. He’s been with the railroad for 22 years and said, “Back when I first started, when you got hired on, you just kinda got thrown into a position and were expected to perform with very little training. Training is a 6 The Dispatch | April 2021
big focus now. I think that has a lot to do with our success. The training program that we run starts out with ground school. We then run the guys through 90 days on-the-job training with an experienced team member and then do the follow-up for up to six months with one-on-one meetings, and I think that has a lot to do with building a safety culture here and getting the guys steered in the right direction.” He added, “I think that the culture we have now is all about keeping people safe and getting people the right training and development to get where they are at.” The team says that another factor in their successful safety culture is the investment the railroad has made in them and in the proper equipment enabling them to work safe. “We’ve got the right equipment to do the right job, and I think that’s a huge part of it, having the right equipment to do your job safely and effectively,” said Ryan Esser, WSOR Carman.
